Google launched the Android 11 Developer preview in February, and though they outlined a schedule for point releases at the time, COVID-19 has played merry hell with schedules for everyone and their targets slipped. The launch of Android 11 was pegged for Q3, or around August based on previous years launches, but it looks like Google is eyeing September 8th as a launch date.
The potential launch date was spotted during their recent Smart Home summit, in a video for partners. The slide in the video – which has now been made private by Google – was spotted by Phone Arena, and captured for posterity, clearly shows that, at this stage, Android 11 is due to be released on September 8th (likely September 9th here in Australia).
Google did release Android 10 at the beginning of September last year, which fits their original Q3 launch window, and they’ve just released a second Android 11 Beta with a focus on platform stability. The revised official timeline still lists Q3 as the launch date, so we can expect a third Android 11 Beta possibly next month ahead of the final release.
The launch of Android 11 is expected ahead of the Pixel 5 launch which itself is expected to be shown off at their ‘Made by Google’ hardware event possibly in October if previous years are anything to go by.
The rollout of Android 11 will be down to the individual OEMs, who have notoriously been slow to push releases. There is good news on that front though. A blog post from Google overnight showed the speed at which devices have been updating to the latest version of Android is improving. According to Google, Android 10 reached 100 million devices just five short months after it was released – 28% faster than Android 9 (Pie).
COVID-19 has changed the well laid plans of everyone this year, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the launch date slip. Google hasn’t confirmed the launch date, and likely won’t, but we should be seeing a final release soon.
